“We live in a world that for the most part does not value what we do as writers and in response we waste our time complaining about degrees and pedigrees instead of making the big art that might actually silence our critics—or at least bring new readers back into the fold.” Matt Bell says smart things at Nineteen Questions.

There is a comprehensive look at the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Observer. Also, both of these make us very excited: “Mr. Coates is currently finishing a novel on the Underground Railroad and will soon be submitting to a publisher a book of essays about the Civil War, a subject he has been infatuated with on his blog for five years.”